


Bugged Out

by NotALemon



Series: A Two-Man, One-Angel Operation (Supernatural Rewritten) [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean Winchester's Dubious Morality, Episode: s01e08 Bugs, Established Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Gabriel (Supernatural) is Loki, Gabriel and Dean Winchester's Rivalry, Gabriel and Sam Winchester in Love, Gabriel's Questionable Past, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Protective Gabriel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotALemon/pseuds/NotALemon
Summary: Sam turns and gives him a look. “Matt, how old are you?” Sam asks.“Sixteen,” Matt says.“Well, don’t sweat it, ‘cuz in two years, somethinggreat’sgonna happen.”“What?”“College.” Sam says the word like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen in the world. “You’ll be able to get out of that house and away from your dad.”“What kind of advice is that? Kid should stick with his family,” Dean argues.They stop walking.“No one shouldeverstay in a family just ‘cuz it’s family,” Gabriel argues back. “If you gotta leave to save yourself, then you gotta make that choice.”
Relationships: Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Series: A Two-Man, One-Angel Operation (Supernatural Rewritten) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643980
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79





	Bugged Out

If a construction worker falls into a hole, and bugs melt his brain, who is there to tell what he saw?

-

Outside of a random bar in Oklahoma, Sam and Gabriel stand around the Impala, Gabriel’s hand firmly planted in Sam’s back pocket, casually groping at Sam’s rear while they read a newspaper article. Gabriel’s sipping on a neverending mint julep he conjured up, Sam occasionally taking a drink. Sam’s in a button-up and a jacket, fighting off the slight chill of the dark, and Gabriel seems to have stolen one of Sam’s hoodies and put it under his own jacket, making him look a little childish.

Dean comes outside, laughing while waving a wad of cash through the chilly night air.

“You know, we could get day jobs once in a while,” Sam points out.

“Hunting’s our day job,” Dean points out, counting his earnings. “And the pay is crap.” Dean shoves the wad of cash into his pocket. “You guys better not’ve been screwing on my car.”

“I only take it up the ass on the hood of your car,” Gabriel deadpans. He punctuates his statement with a pointed squeeze of Sam’s ass.

“ _Gabe_ ,” Sam chastises, a little startled. 

“Either put him on a leash or _muzzle him_ ,” Dean says.

“Oh, how did you know I’m into that?” Gabriel asks.

Dean gags.

“Hustling pool? Credit card scams?” Sam continues, ignoring all the sex talk like some sort of paragon of purity. “It’s not the most honest thing in the world, Dean.”

“Well, let’s see: honest,” Dean says. He holds up one hand, open palm to the sky. “Fun and easy.” He holds out the other palm, weighting them until _fun and easy_ outweighs _honest_ , looking at Sam expectantly. “It’s no contest,” he says, decisively. “Besides, we’re good at it. It’s what we were raised to do.”

“Yeah, and _I_ was raised to be a fierce heavenly warrior, but _I_ became a Pagan god,” Gabriel says.

Dean looks at Gabriel as though he’s wondering whether to believe Gabriel or not.

“How we were raised was jacked,” Sam says. “All of us, I guess.”

“Yeah, says you,” Dean says. “We got a new gig or what?”

“Maybe,” Sam says. “Oasis Plains, Oklahoma-- not far from here. A gas company employee, Dustin Burwash, supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob.”

“Huh?” Dean asks.

“Human mad cow disease,” Gabriel clarifies.

“Mad cow,” Dean says, recognizing it. He leans against the hood of the Impala. “Wasn’t that on Oprah?”

Sam’s eyes widen. “You watch Oprah?” he asks, too surprised to be teasing.

Dean says nothing and avoids Sam’s eyes, embarrassed. He changes the topic. “So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?”

“You see, Dean-O, mad cow disease causes some pretty damn big brain degeneration, but it takes… oh, months to years, for this damage to crop up. But this guy, Dustin? Yeah, his brain just went _poof!_ in about an hour or less, or your money back.” 

“Okay, that’s weird,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Sam confirms. “Now, it could be a disease. Or it could be somethin’ much nastier.”

“Alright,” Dean says. “Oklahoma.”

They pile into the Impala.

“Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money,” Dean mutters, starting the Impala and driving off. 

-

Dean parks the Impala outside the Oklahoma Gas and Power Company building and climbs out. Sam and Gabriel follow. They approach Travis, standing outside a car.

“Travis Weaver?” Sam asks.

Travis looks at them. “Yeah, that’s right,” Travis confirms.

“Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusy?” Dean asks.

“Dustin never mentioned nephews,” Travis says.

“Really?” Dean asks. “Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest.”

Travis smiles at the flattery. “Oh, he did? Huh.”

“Heyo, we wanted to ask you… y’know, what happened out there?” Gabriel asks.

“I’m not sure,” Travis says, smile fading from his face. He looks around. “He fell in a sinkhole, I went to the truck to get some rope, and, uh… by the time I got back…” Travis sounds far away.

“What did you see?” Dean asks.

Travis shakes his head. “Nothin’. Just Dustin.”

“No wounds or anything?” Sam asks.

“Well, he was bleeding… from his eyes and his ears, his nose.” Travis gestures at his own face. “But that’s it,” Travis says.

“Whaddya think about the whole _mad cow_ thing?” Gabriel asks.

“I don’t know,” Travis says. “That’s what the doctors are sayin’.”

“But if it was, he would’ve acted strange beforehand, like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?” Sam asks, quietly.

“No,” Travis says, shaking his head. “No way. But then again, if it wasn’t some disease, what the hell was it?” He, like all other humans, is constantly looking for a logical answer, something that wraps everything up with a nice little bow that says _look that this, it all makes sense!_

“That’s a good question,” Dean says.

“You know, can you tell us where this happened?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Travis replies.

He gives them directions to the scene of Dustin’s death, the sinkhole surrounded by bright yellow police tape. It’s hard to miss, gift-wrapped with yellow CAUTION tape. Dean stops the Impala on the other side of the road, and they walk over. 

“Huh,” Dean says, looking at the scene. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admits. “But if that guy, Travis, was right, it happened pretty damn fast.”

Gabriel zaps over to stand by the sinkhole, watching the brothers duck under the yellow police tape. “Way too fast,” he says.

Sam and Dean peer into the dark hole with flashlights. 

“So, what?” Dean asks. “Some sort of creature chewed on his brain?”

“No, there’d be an entry wound,” Sam says. “Sounds like this thing worked from the inside.”

“Huh,” Dean says, looking into the pit. “Looks like there's only room for one. You wanna flip a coin?”

“Dean, we have no idea what’s down there,” Sam says.

Dean picks up a coil of rope from nearby. “Alright, I’ll go if you’re scared. You scared?” Dean asks.

“Flip the damn coin,” Sam says.

Dean chuckles, taking a coin from his pocket. “Alright, call it in the air… chicken.” He flips the coin. It disappears mid-flip. Gabriel holds out his hand to reveal the coin sitting in his palm, shining in the bright daylight. 

“I’m going,” Gabriel says, closing his fist around it and letting the coin poke through one of the slots between his fingers before it disappears once more.

-

Inside the Impala, Dean drives. Sam examines a dead beetle in his hand, sitting in the back with Gabriel, hands where Dean can see them, as Dean has insisted many times. _Maintaining the purity of the Impala_ and whatever other argument Dean has used.

“So your boyfriend found some beetles. In a hole, in the ground. That’s shocking, Sam,” Dean says from the front, sarcastic and dry.

“Listen, Deanie. There were no tunnels or tracks or anythin’ else under there,” Gabriel says.

“You know,” Sam chimes in, going on one of his educational college-boy rants, “some beetles _do_ eat meat. Now, it’s usually dead meat, but--”

“How many did you find down there?” Dean asks.

“Ten,” Gabriel says.

“It’d take a whole lot more than that to eat out some dude’s brain,” Dean says.

“Well, maybe there were more,” Sam argues, growing irritated. 

“I don’t know. It sounds like a stretch to me.”

“Well, we need more information on the area, the neighborhood. Whether something like this has ever happened before,” Sam says.

Gabriel leans against Sam’s side. “Smart,” he says. He kisses the side of Sam’s jaw, just once, very chaste for Gabriel.

“Gross,” Dean grumbles. Then he notices a sign for a nearby open house, surrounded by red balloons. “Huh,” he says.

“What?” Sam asks.

“I know a good place to start,” Dean says.

_Models Open. New Buyers’ BBQ Today!_ , another sign reads, large and welcoming.

“I’m kinda hungry for a little barbeque, how ‘bout you guys?” Dean glances in the rearview, catching Sam’s knowing look. “What, we can’t talk to the locals?”

“And the free food’s got nothin’ to do with it?” Sam asks.

“Of course not,” Dean defends. “I’m a professional.”

“Right,” Sam says, unconvinced.

Dean pulls over, parallel-parks between a couple cars on the street, and gets out of the Impala. They walk down the street to the open house, Sam and Gabriel holding hands as they walk.

“Growin’ up in a place like this would freak me out,” Dean remarks, looking a little spooked by the clipper-cut lawns and uniform houses, everything perfectly created to fit in. 

“Why?” Sam asks, gently swinging his and Gabriel’s hands.

Dean gestures to one of the houses. “Well, manicured lawns, ‘how was your day, honey?’... I’d blow my brains out.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ‘normal’,” Sam says, scathing. He glances at Gabriel. 

“I’d take our family over normal any day,” Dean says.

They approach the house and knock on the door, which the homeowner, Larry Pike, answers with a salesman’s smile. “Welcome,” he says, brightly.

“This the barbeque?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, not the best weather, but… I’m Larry Pike, the developer here. And you are…?”

“Dean,” Dean says. “This’s Sam, and that’s Gabriel.” 

They shake hands, a formal action.

“Sam, Dean, Gabe, good to meet you,” Larry says, pleasantly. “So, you three are interested in Oasis Plains?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean says.

“Let me say-- we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or… sexual orientation,” Larry says, eyeing Sam and Gabriel’s joined hands.

Dean nudges one of Sam’s broad shoulders.

“Ah, yeah. Gabe and I-- we’re looking for a place to start our lives,” Sam says, a statement close to home.

“Great, great,” Larry says. “Everyone’s welcome. Come on in.” He takes them outside into the backyard, full of people walking around with plates of food, chatting idly to each other. It’s very domestic, very idealized suburban America. 

“You said you were the developer?” Sam asks, politely.

“Eighteen months ago, I was walking this valley with my survey team,” Larry begins, walking backwards to talk to them. “There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself. This is our house,” Larry announces, gesturing to the house. “We’re the first family in Oasis Plains.” Larry leads them over to his wife. “This is my wife, Joanie.”

“Hi there,” she says, sweetly. 

“Hi,” Dean says, shaking her hand.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” she says.

“Sam, Dean, and Gabriel,” Larry announces.

Sam shakes her hand next. “Sam,” he says.

“Pleasure,” Janie replies.

“That must make me Gabriel. Hi.” Gabriel’s the next to shake her hand, still refusing to let go of Sam’s hand.

“Hi,” Joanie says.

“Tell them how much you love the place, honey,” Larry implores. “And lie if you have to because I need to sell some houses,” he adds, semi-jokingly. 

“Right,” Joanie replies.

They laugh, good-naturedly.

“Boys, will you excuse me?” Larry leaves.

“Don’t let his salesman routine scare you,” Joanie says, with an almost-manufactured pleasantness. “This really is a great place to live.”

A woman, Lynda Bloome, approaches them. She radiates energy, despite her very professional exterior, her black hair pulled into a tight bun. “Hi, I’m Lynda Bloome, head of sales,” she says.

“And Lynda was second to move in,” Joanie says. “She’s a very noisy neighbor, though.” She leaves politely.

Lynda laughs. “She’s kidding, of course. I take it you three are interested in becoming homeowners?”

“Well…” Dean looks at Sam and Gabriel.

“Y-Yeah, Gabe and I, we’re, um, considering buying our first home.” Sam says, nervous about the almost-truth, almost-lie. “Dean-- he’s just here to approve. Older brother things and stuff.”

“Well, let me just say that we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or… sexual orientation,” Lynda says, echoing exactly what Larry had said before.

Dean chuckles. “Right. Um… I’m gonna go talk to Larry.” He turns to Gabriel. “You behave with my brother, you get it?”

Gabriel looks at Dean, then grabs Sam’s ass theatrically. 

“Gabe,” Sam chastises. 

-

Inside the neat, impersonal house, Larry and Dean walk downstairs, finishing a tour.

“You’ve got three choices-- carpet, hardwood, and tile,” Larry says.

Dean notices a jar of bugs sitting on a nearby table, next to a vase of daffodils. “Whoa. Someone likes bugs,” he remarks.

“My son-- he’s into insects,” Larry says, sounding less than proud. “He’s very… inquizitive.”

-

Lydia still talks to Sam and Gabriel. Sam’s arm has looped around Gabriel’s waist, holding Gabriel close to his side. 

“Who can say ‘no’ to a steam shower?” Lydia asks, continuing her sales pitch. “I use mine everyday.”

“Sounds great,” Sam says, uninterested but smiling politely. He glances at Gabriel, who looks like he’s about to tap into angel radio, just for something interesting to do. Sam’s eyes continue to wander. He notices a tarantula crawling towards Lydia’s hand where it’s resting on a table. A teenage boy, Matt, watches excitedly from across the table. “Excuse me,” Sam says, politely. He pushes Lydia out of the way and picks up the spider in his large hand, bringing it over to Matt. “Is this yours?” he asks.

Matt,in his ill-fitting collared shirt, takes the spider from him. “You gonna tell my dad?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “Who’s your dad?”

Matt scoffs bitterly. “Yeah, Larry usually skips me in the family introductions,” he says.

Gabriel inhales through his teeth. “Ouch. First name basis with your daddy-- it’s pretty grim,” he says. 

“Well, I’m not exactly brochure material,” Matt says.

“Well, hang in there,” Sam says. “It gets better, alright? I promise.” He takes Gabriel’s hand and squeezes it.

“When?” Matt asks, skeptical.

“Matthew,” Larry chastises sharply. They all turn to see Larry and Dean walking towards them. “I am so sorry about my son and his… pet.”

“It’s no bother,” Sam says.

“Excuse us,” Larry says. He walks off with one hand tightly wrapped around Matt’s shoulder.

“Remind you of somebody?” Sam asks Dean.

Dean looks over at Larry, who’s angrily chastising Matt. He looks back at Sam, confused.

“Dad?” Sam prompts.

Dean looks back at the Pikes, then at Sam, disbelief etched into his face. “Dad never treated us like that,” Dean says.

Sam looks at them as well, laughing hollowly. “Well, Dad never treated you like that,” Sam says, a little bitter. “You were perfect. He was all over my case. You don’t remember?”

Dean blinks. “Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes, you were out of line,” Dean argues.

Gabriel raises his eyebrows.

Sam scoffs. “Right. Right, like when I said I’d rather play soccer than learn bowhunting.” 

“Bowhunting’s an important skill,” Dean argues, oblivious to Sam’s point. 

Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says. “How was your tour?”

“Oh, it was excellent. I definitely approve of you guys living here with your, uh, golden retriever and two-point-four adopted kids.”

Sam laughs at that.

“So, you might be onto somethin’,” Dean admits, quieting his voice. “Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn’t the first strange death around here.”

“Alright, who else dropped dead?” Gabriel asks.

“About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry’s surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Got this severe allergic reaction to bee stings.”

“More bugs,” Sam says.

Dean nods. “More bugs.”

-

Sam drives through the neighborhood while Dean looks through John’s journal.

“You know, I’ve heard of killer bees, but killer beetles? What is it that could make different bugs attack?” Dean asks.

“Well, hauntings sometimes include bug manifestations,” Sam suggests.

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any evidence of ghost activity,” Dean says.

“Yeah, me neither,” Sam agrees.

“I get a bad feeling from this place,” Gabriel offers from the back, an arm resting on the back of Dean’s seat, nearly brushing against Dean’s face. He’s hardly even sitting in the seat, something that would be a huge safety violation, were he human. He counts this as payback for Dean not allowing him to sit up front with Sam.

“I’ll write that down,” Dean says. “‘Angel’s creeped out by the bug-infested suburb. Reason unknown. Thought to be too many normal people in one place’.”

“You may mock me, but I’ve saved your ass enough times you should trust my angel intuition,” Gabriel snaps.

“The case,” Sam says, trying to get them back on track.

“Right,” Dean says, taking his eyes off Gabriel. “Maybe they’re being controlled somehow. You know, by something or someone.”

“You mean, like Willard?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, bugs instead of rats,” Dean says, leafing through the journal. 

“There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals-- elementals, telepaths,” Sam suggests.

“‘What’s that, Lassie? Timmy’s in the mineshaft?’,” Gabriel says.

Dean pauses to think for a moment and realizes something. “Larry’s kid-- he’s got bugs for pets.”

“Matt?” Sam asks.

“Yeah.”

“He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula,” Sam reasons.

“You think he’s our Willard?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “What I’m feeling-- there’s no _way_ that kid’s behind it. This’s some powerful stuff. More powerful than some teenager and his bugs.”

“I’ll write that down, too,” Dean dismisses. “Ooh, hey. Pull over here.”

Sam pulls into the empty driveway of one of the many identical Oasis Plains homes. “What are we doing here?”

Dean gets out of the car. “It’s too late to talk to anybody else,” he says, opening up the garage door quietly..

“We’re gonna squat in an empty house?” Sam asks, judgmentally.

“I wanna try the steam shower,” Dean says. “Come on.” He looks around for anyone else.

Sam doesn’t move, glancing at Gabriel.

“Come on!” Dean insists.

Sam pulls the Impala into the garage, Dean closing the door behind it.

-

If a realtor is killed in her house by thousands of tarantulas, who can tell the tale?

-

In the morning, Sam, hair damp from a recent shower, approaches the bathroom door, the sound of a shower running almost drowning out his knock. “You ever comin’ out of here?”

“You took forever in here!” Dean argues back, over the running water.

Sam politely doesn’t mention the reason he took so long in the shower was that Gabriel was also present, and they’d taken their sweet time in a relatively private area while Gabriel maintained the hot water. There are things his brother doesn’t need to know, despite the fact that Gabriel loves to mention their sex life to Dean, just to rub in the fact that Dean doesn’t get any on a regular basis.

“Dean, a police call came in on the scanner,” Sam says instead.

“Hold on,” Dean says.

“Someone was found dead three blocks from here. Come on.”

The bathroom door opens, letting out curls of steam. Dean stands in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his head, grinning. “This shower is _awesome_ ,” he says.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he says, loudly. He walks away, back to Gabriel.

The miracle of having separate rooms and a little privacy for once.

-

Dean parks in front of Lynda Bloom’s house, the driveway occupied by an ambulance. They all exit the car and approach Larry, who is finishing talking to someone on his phone. EMTs carry out Lynda’s body in a body bag on a stretcher. Rain sprinkles down on them. 

Sam and Dean open black umbrellas, Gabriel crowding close to Sam’s side. 

“Hello,” Larry says, noticing the men approaching him. He closes his phone. “You’re, uh, back early.”

“Yeah, we just drove in, wanted to take another look in the neighborhood,” Dean says.

“What’s goin’ on?” Sam asks, pulling Gabriel close to him.

“You guys met, uh… Lynda Bloome at the barbeque?”

“The realtor,” Sam says.

“Well, she, uh… passed away last night.”

The Winchesters are shocked. Gabriel doesn’t look nearly as surprised, but still acts the part.

“What happened?” Dean asks.

“I’m still tryin’ to find out. Identified the body for the police,” Larry says. He looks at Linda’s house. “Look, I-I’m sorry, this isn’t a good time now,” he says, harried.

“It’s okay,” Sam ays.

“Excuse me,” Larry says, politely, before leaving them behind.

“Bad. Place,” Gabriel says, pointedly.

“Yeah, we got it. ‘Angel senses bad juju, bad things happen when human boys ignore it, blah blah blah’,” Dean dismisses. “You know what we have to do, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Get in that house.”

“See if we got a bug problem,” Dean agrees.

They climb over the fence, clamoring up the side of the house, and then through the window to Lynda’s bedroom. It’s always a bedroom window.

Gabriel leans against the wall, joining the brothers with a quip about _what took so long?_ that brings Dean one step closer to strangling him.

The outline of Lynda’s body is drawn on the carpet, blood further muddying the outline.

“This looks like the place,” Dean says, without any sort of reverence for the dead. They wander to another part of the room. Dean picks up a towel, then drops it when he notices it’s completely covered in dead spiders. “Spiders,” he says. “From Spider Boy?”

“I prefer Spider-Ham,” Gabriel says.

“Matt-- maybe,” Sam says.

-

Dean pulls the Impala up to the curb, following a school bus. He’s been muttering about gas mileage the entire time they’ve followed the bus, despite this being the only stop. Matt gets off the school bus and begins walking, hands in his pockets.

“Isn’t his house that way?” Dean points in the opposite direction of where Matt’s slowly making his way into a wooded area.

“Yup,” Sam confirms.

“So where’s he goin’?”

“I’m telling you that there’s no way this kid’s behind this,” Gabriel pipes up from the back.

“Can it, feathers,” Dean says.

They get out of the car and trail behind Matt. He’s examining a grasshopper in the woods, letting it crawl on one hand while his other holds a creature keeper.

“Hey, Matt,” Sam says, quietly. “Remember me?”

“What are you doin’ out here?” Matt asks.

“Well, we wanna talk to you,” Dean says.

“You’re not here to buy a house, are you?” Matt asks.

Dean shakes his head.

“W-Wait,” Matt says, very aware of every _stranger danger_ talk he’s ever had at school in this moment. “You’re not serial killers?”

The Winchesters laugh. Gabriel has to swallow down a snort.

“No, no,” Sam says. “No, I think you’re safe.” He reaches out for Gabriel’s hand once more. Matt eyes them like he’s never seen gay people before. Maybe he hasn’t.

“So, Matt… you sure know a lot about insects,” Dean begins.

Matt looks at the grasshopper on his hand. “So?” he asks, with teenage standoffishness.

“So, you hear what happened to Lynda last night? How she, uh, got chomped up by some spiders?” Gabriel asks.

“Matt… you tried to scare her with a spider,” Sam says, quietly.

“Wait,” Matt says. “You think _I_ had something to do with that?”

“You tell us,” Dean says.

“That tarantula was a _joke_ ,” Matt says, defensive, gesturing with the clear box he was going to use to store the grasshopper. “Anyway, that wouldn’t explain the bee attack or the gas company guy.”

“You know about those?” Sam asks, curious.

“There _is_ somethin’ going on here,” Matt says. “I don’t know what, but something’s happening with the insects. Let me show you something.” He picks his backpack up off the ground and walks off to another area with them.

“You know, kid, if you got all this knowledge ‘bout this insect stuff, why not tell your daddy?” Gabriel asks. “Maybe he’d clear everyone out. Keep everyone safe from the creepy-crawlies.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried,” Matt says. “But, uh, Larry doesn’t listen to me.”

“Why not?” Sam asks.

“Mostly? He’s too disappointed in his freak son.”

Sam scoffs. “I hear you,” he says.

“You do?” Dean asks, eyeing him.

Sam turns and gives him a look. “Matt, how old are you?” Sam asks.

“Sixteen,” Matt says.

“Well, don’t sweat it, ‘cuz in two years, something _great’s_ gonna happen.”

“What?” 

“College.” Sam says the word like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen in the world. “You’ll be able to get out of that house and away from your dad.”

“What kind of advice is that? Kid should stick with his family,” Dean argues.

They stop walking. 

“No one should _ever_ stay in a family just ‘cuz it’s family,” Gabriel argues back. “If you gotta leave to save yourself, then you gotta make that choice.”

Sam sighs and galres at both of them. “How much further, Matt?” he asks, with forced politeness.

“We’re close,” Matt says.

Sam glares at Dean once more before he and Gabriel continue walking after Matt. A few moments later, they reach a spacious clearing, the sounds of hundreds of different insects chattering from amongst the trees loud.

“I’ve been keeping track of insect populations,” Matt explains. “I’ts, um, part of an AP science class.”

“The three of you nerds are peas in a pod,” Dean mutters, looking off to the side.

Sam ignores his brother. “What’s been happening?”

“A lot,” Matt says, a little flustered. “I mean, from bees to earthworms, uh, beetles… you name it. It’s like they’re congregating here.”

“Why?” Dean asks.

Matt shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“So, uh, that’s with all that over there?” Gabriel asks, pointing to a dark patch of grass a few feet away. 

They all walk over to it to discover hundreds of worms in a mound. Dean steps on some of them, and the area falls into the ground, creating a hole. He crouches down to inspect it and uses a stick to poke around, tapping it against something with a click. “There’s somethin’ down there,” he says, putting the stick down to inspect with his hand in the damp earth. His face warps with disgust when he feels something inside it. When he brings his hand back up, they all look horrified.

Covered in dirt and worms, there is a human skull in Dean’s hand.

-

The Impala pulls up to the local university. The group exits the car, Gabriel with a cardboard box full of bones covered in Sam’s jacket, and heads towards the building.

“So, a bunch of skeletons in an unmarked grave,” Sam says.

“Yeah. Maybe this _is_ a haunting,” Dean says. “Pissed off spirits? Some unfinished business?”

“This is more powerful,” Gabriel says, wisely. He looks at the box of bones. “And you can believe me, ‘cuz now we know for _sure_ it wasn’t the kid, so I’ve been right so far.”

“Smug asshole,” Dean mutters.

“Question is, why bugs?” Sam asks. “And why now?”

“That’s two questions, lollipop,” Gabriel says.

“Yeah, so with that kid back there… why’d you tell him to just ditch his family like that?” Dean asks.

“Just, uh… I know what the kid’s goin’ through,” Sam replies, a little hesitantly.

“How ‘bout tellin’ him to respect his old man, how’s that for advice?”

“Dean, come on,” Sam says. They stop walking. “This isn’t about his old man. You think I didn’t respect Dad. That’s what this is about.”

“Just forget it, alright? Sorry I brought it up,” Dean says, prickly.

“I respected him,” Sam says. “But no matter what I did, it was never good enough.”

“So what are you sayin’? That Dad was disappointed in you?”

“Was?” Sam asks. “Is. Always has been.”

Dean blinks at Sam. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I didn’t wanna bowhunt or hustle pool-- because I wanted to go to school and live my life, which, to our whacked-out family, made me the freak,” Sam says, voice full of barely-restrained emotion. Gabriel squeezes his hand.

“Yeah, you were kind of like the blonde chick in _The Munsters_ ,” Dean comments with a smile. 

Sam looks annoyed. “Dean, you know what most dads are when their kids score a full ride?” Sam asks. “Proud,” he says, quietly. “Most dads don’t toss their kids out of the house.”

Gabriel represses a flinch at that, memories he’d rather not think about being brought to the surface.

“I remember that fight,” Dean says. “In fact, I seem to recall a few choice phrases comin’ out of your mouth.”

“You know, truth is, when we finally _do_ find Dad… I don’t know if he’s even gonna wanna see me,” Sam says.

“Sam, Dad was never disappointed in you. Never. He was scared.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“He was afraid of what could’ve happened to you if he went around. But even when you two weren’t talkin’... he used to swing by Stanford whenever he could. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe.”

“What?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Dean says, repressing his emotions.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of that?”

“Well, it’s a two-way street, dude. You could’ve picked up the phone,” Dean says. 

Sam stares at him, sadly, then at the ground.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late for our appointment,” Dean says. He walks away.

-

Inside of a college classroom, they speak with a, elderly professor who walks with a cane.

“So, you two are students?” the professor asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, uh, we’re in your class-- Anthro 101?”

“Oh, yeah,” the professor says, dismissively.

“So, what about the bones, Professor?” Dean asks.

“This is quite an interesting find you’ve made. I’d say they’re a hundred and seventy years old, give or take. The timeframe and geography heavily suggest Native American.”

“Were there any tribes or reservations on that land?” Sam asks.

“Not according to the historical record,” the professor says. Dean perks up, a little confused. “But the, uh, relocation of native peoples was quite common at that time.”

“So, any legends ‘round these parts? Oral histories?” Gabriel asks.

“Well… you know, there’s a Euchee tribe in Sapulpa. It’s about sixty miles from here. Someone out there might know the truth,” the professor suggests, almost mysteriously. 

“Alright,” Dean says.

-

The group enters a diner and finds an older Native American man playing cards at one of the tables, an untouched cup of coffee in front of him. 

“Joe White Tree?” Sam asks, politely. 

The man nods. He watches Gabriel carefully.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright,” Sam continues.

“We’re students from the university,” Dean says. 

“No, you’re not. You’re lying,” Joe says, boldy. He goes back to his cards. 

Dean seems taken aback at that. “Well, truth is--”

“You know who starts sentences with ‘truth is’? Liars.”

Dean exchanges a look with Sam. 

“Have you heard of Oasis Plains?” Sam asks. “It’s a housing development near the Atoka Valley.”

Joe looks at Dean. “I like him. He’s not a liar.” 

Dean looks angry at that, rubbing at his face. 

“I know the area,” Joe says to Sam.

“Can you tell us somethin’ about the history there?” Gabriel asks.

Joe gives Gabriel an interesting look. “Why do you wanna know?”

Gabriel blinks at him.

“Something… something bad is happening in Oasis Plains,” Sam says. “We think it might have something to do with some old bones we found down there-- Native American bones.”

Joe rests his hands against the table. “I’ll tell you what my grandfather told me, what his grandfather told him. Two hundred years ago, a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant, the cavalry impatient. As my grandfather put it, on the night the moon and the sun share the sky as equals, the cavalry first raided our village. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again, and the next, and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time. And by the time the sun rose, every man, woman, and child still in the village was dead.” Joe pauses, watching the Winchesters and Gabriel as his words sink in. “They say on the sixth night, as the chief of the village lay dying, he whispered to the heavens that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. Nature would rise up and protect the valley. And it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people.”

“Insects,” Dean says. “Sounds like nature to me. Six days.”

“And on the night of the sixth day, none would survive,” Joe continues, ominously, looking at Gabriel once more and fiddling with his cards. 

The boys exchange a look.

-

They walk back to the car. 

“When did the gas company man die?” Sam asks.

“Friday. The twentieth,” Gabriel says.

“March twentieth?” Sam asks.

Dean nods. 

“That’s the spring equinox.”

“The night the sun and the moon share the sky as equals,” Dean says.

“So, every year, ‘round this time, white humans in Oasis Plains are in danger,” Gabriel says. He shakes his head. “Cursed land. I _told_ you somethin’ was off with this place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says. 

“The sixth night-- that’s tonight,” Sam says. “If we don’t do something, Larry’s family will be dead by sunrise. So how do we break the curse?”

“Sammy, my lovely cupcake, you don’t just _break a curse_. You get outta the way and hope for the best,” Gabrie says. “We needed to move these people out, like, _yesterday_.”

They get in the car and drive off.

-

What hisses and crawls out the ground?

A fountain of cockroaches.

-

Dean drives while talking on the phone with Larry. “Yes, Mr. Pike, there’s a mainline gas leak in your neighborhood,” Dean says, in his official-sounding voice, hurried.

“God, really? And how big?” Larry asks, unbelieving. 

“Well, it’s fairly extensive. I don’t want to alarm you, but we need your family out of the civinity for at least twelve hours or so, just to be safe.”

“And who is this, again?” Larry asks.

“Travis Weaver. I work for Oklahoma Gas and Power.”

“Uh-huh,” Larry says. “Well, the problem is, I know Travis. He’s worked with us for a year, so who is this?”

“Uh…” Dean hangs up, panicking, closing the phone. 

“Give me the phone,” Sam demands, taking the phone from Dean and dialing a number. 

“Hello?” Matt asks.

“Matt, it’s Sam.”

“Sam, my backyard is crawling with cockroaches,” Matt says.

“Matt, just listen. You have to get your family out of that house right now, okay?” Sam urges.

“What? Why?” Matt asks.

“Because something’s coming.”

“More bugs?” 

“Yeah, a lot more.” 

“My dad doesn’t listen in the best of circumstances, what am I supposed to tell him?”

“You’ve gotta make him listen, okay?” Sam asks.

“Give me the phone, give me the phone,” Dean says. He grabs the phone from Sam’s hand and holds it up to his ear. “Matt, under _no_ circumstances are you to tell the truth. They’ll just think you’re nuts.”

“But he’s my--”

“Tell him you have a sharp pain in your right side and you’ve gotta go to the hospital, okay?” Dean instructs, authoritative. 

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Yeah, okay.” He hangs up.

“Make him listen? What are you thinkin’?” Dean asks Sam, scolding.

“Shut up and _step on it_ ,” Gabriel insists.

-

Dean pulls up outside Larry’s house. Larry looks out the window and, when he sees their car, goes outside. 

“Damn it, they’re still here,” Dean mutters. “Come on,” he tells Sam and Gabriel.

Sam and Dean get out of the car. Gabriel zaps out. They’re joined by Matt.

“Get off my property before I call the cops,” Larry threatens.

“Mr. Pike, listen,” Sam pleads.

“Dad, they’re just tryin’ to help,” Matt begs, sounding weak.

“Get in the house!” Larry yells to Matt.

“I’m sorry,” Matt tells the Winchesters and Gabriel. “I told him the truth.”

“We had a plan, Matt, what happened to the plan?” Dean asks.

“Look, it’s twelve a.m.,” Sam says, quietly pleading. “They are coming any minute now. You need to get your family and go, before it’s too late.”

“Yeah, you mean before the biblical swarm,” Larry mocks. 

“Listen Larry,” Gabriel snaps, tired of Larry’s bullshit. “What do you _really_ think’s been goin’ on ‘round here, huh? The realtor? And the gas company guy? You’re not puttin’ together the pieces? There’s four of ‘em and they’re only squares, Larry. Get it through your damn head that there’s somethin’ weird happenin’ here and that you needed to leave _last week_ if you wanted to protect your family.” 

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but you’re crazy. You come near my boy or my family again, and we’re gonna have a problem,” Larry threatens, as aggressively as he can.

“Well, I hate to be a downer, but we’ve got a problem right now,” Dean says.

“Dad, they’re right, okay? We’re in danger,” Matt says.

“Matt, get inside!” Larry commands. “Now!”

“No!” Matt yells back. “Why won’t you listen to me?!”

“Because this is crazy! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Look, this land is cursed!” Sam cuts in. “People have died here. Now, are you gonna really take that risk with your family?” Sam asks, aggressively.

“Wait,” Dean says. They all fall silent. “You hear it?”

A buzzing noise approaching from the distance, loud. 

“What the hell?” Larry asks.

The blue bug light on the porch begins overheating as it kills several bugs at once.

“Alright, it’s time to go. Larry, get your wife,” Dean says.

“Guys,” Matt says, staring up at the clouded, moonlit sky. 

All of them look up. Millions of bugs black out the sky, flying towards the house with a sort of single-minded purpose.

“Oh my God,” Larry says.

“We’ll never make it,” Sam says.

“Everybody in the house,” Dean commands. Then, more urgently: “Everybody in the house, go!”

They rush inside the house, locking the door behind them.

“Okay, is there anybody else in the neighborhood?” Sam asks.

“No, it’s just us,” Larry says.

Joanie enters the room, concerned and ruffled. “Honey, what’s happening? What’s that noise?”

“Call 911,” Larry says. When she doesn’t move, he snaps. “Joanie!”

“Okay,” she says, picking up the phone and dialing the number.

“I need towels,” Dean says.

“Uh, in the closet,” Larry says. 

Gabriel snaps some up into Dean’s hands.

“What the hell?” Larry asks.

“Archangel Gabriel,” Gabriel says quickly, running through his usual spiel. “Yes, archangels are real, God’s real, hell’s real, blah blah blah, we can talk theology and God-stuff when we make it through this, okay? Great.”

Sam looks at Matt. “Okay, we’ve gotta lock this place up. Come on-- doors, windows, fireplace, everything, okay?”

They run upstairs. Gabriel stands at the bottom.

“If you die, Sam, I swear to my daddy I’ll kill you!” Gabriel yells. 

Sam stops and whirls around. “Love you, too, Gabe.” Then he continues running after Matt.

“Phones are dead,” Joanie says.

“They must have chewed through the phone lines,” Dean comments, putting towels at the base of the front door. The power blips out. “And the power lines.”

“I need my cell,” Larry says. He picks it up. “No signal.”

“You won’t get one. They’re blanketing the house,” Dean says, looking at a window that’s quickly being covered in the shiny, black bodies of millions of bugs. 

“911 couldn’t do anything anyway,” Gabriel says. He snaps, an orb of light appearing in the room with them.

“‘Let there be light’,” Dean mutters, tucking in towels.

“Hey, Dean? Shut up.” 

Bugs continue to collect on the doors and windows, covering the entire building in a blanket of them. They all watch, waiting quietly.

“So what do we do now?” Larry asks.

Sam and Matt return from upstairs. “We try to outlast it,” Sam says. “Hopefully, the curse will end at sunrise.”

“Hopefully?” Larry asks.

Dean searches the kitchen cabinets, finding a can of bug spray, returning to the living room with it.

“Bug spray?” Joanie asks, disbelieving.

“Trust me,” Dean says.

Creaking comes from somewhere in the house.

“What is that?” Matt asks.

Sam approaches the fireplace. “The flue,” Sam says.

“Alright, I think everybody needs to get upstairs,” Dean says.

Thousands of bugs shoot into the living room, swarming them. The people try to protect themselves. Dean uses a lighter and the can of spray to make a makeshift flamethrower, warding the bugs away as the others try to escape. 

“We’re going upstairs,” Gabriel says, snapping them into the attic. After a moment of being in the attic, sawdust falls in steams from the ceiling. The buzzing gets louder.

“Oh, God, what’s that?” Joanie asks.  
Sam and Dean approach the dust.

“Something’s eating through the wood,” Dean says.

“Termites,” Matt says.

“Alright, everybody get back,” Dean commands, coughing from the dust. “Get back, get back, get back!”

The Pikes move into the corner of the attic. A second later, the bugs chew a hole through the ceiling, swarming around the room in a cloud of little, many-legged bodies, the sound of their swarm near-deafening. Sam and Dean try to patch up the hole, their methods only working for a moment before the bugs break through. Gabriel snaps up a proper seal. He has to keep creating more with each hole the termites chew. Dean tries warding the bugs off with spray.

“Hey, I’d love a helpin’ hand, Gabe,” Dean says.

“I’m sure you would,” Gabriel remarks. He snaps up more spray in Dean’s hand and a can in Sam’s, then turns the wood in the house to metal instead, holding it up with sheer force of will.

Sam and Dean spray at the bugs already in the room, nothing deterring them. Gabriel sighs through his teeth and snaps up invisible walls around all of them.

“Why didn't you do this in the first place?” Dean demands.

“‘Cuz I like making you guys work for it,” Gabriel remarks. 

“Why not, oh, I dunno, _snap the bugs away_?” Dean asks.

“I can let the bugs back in,” Gabriel threatens.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sam says, stepping between them. He turns to Dean. “Let’s not bite the hand that just saved our asses.” Then he turns to Gabriel. “You don’t have to be a dick, you know.”

“Oh, but you love my--”

Sam clears his throat. “No,” he says. “Not the place, not the time. Later, okay?”

“Look,” Matt says, pointing at one of the invisible walls. The bugs begin to stop slamming themselves against it, flying away from them and forcing another hole in the ceiling to leave through. Pale, watery light shines in through the hole, the bugs leaving with the same roar they entered with.

Gabriel snaps the walls away. Sam and Dean go to inspect the new hole, watching the bugs, in a huge colony that nearly blacks out the watery sun, fly away from them.

-

In the light of the morning, Larry places boxes in a D.I.Y. Mover van sitting in his driveway. The Winchesters and Gabriel approach him.

“What, no goodbye?” Dean asks.

“Good timing,” Larry comments. “Another hour and we’d have been gone.” He shakes their hands.

“And by _gone_ , you mean the big ol’ _forever_ type of gone?” Gabriel asks.

“Yeah,” Larry says. The development’s been put on hold while the government investigates those bones you found. But I’m gonna make damn sure no one lives here again.”

“You don’t seem too upset about it,” Sam comments.

“Well, this has been the biggest financial disaster of my career, but…” he looks over at Matt, who carries a box out of the garage and rests it on top of a blue garbage can, “... somehow, I really don’t care.”

They share a smile.

Sam and Gabriel walk over to Matt, who is throwing away all his insect paraphernalia.

“What’s this?” Sam asks, arms spread wide.

“I don’t know. They kind of weird me out now,” Matt admits.

They all laugh.

“I’d hope so, kid,” Gabriel says.

A few moments later, Sam and Gabriel join Dean on the Impala’s hood, watching Larry and Matt, who now talk to each other like people instead of enemies.

“I wanna find Dad,” Sam says, quietly. He leans against Gabriel’s side.

“Yeah, me too,” Dean says.

“Yeah, but I just… I want to apologize to him,” Sam says, still watching the Pike men.

Dean glances at Sam. “For what?”

“All the things I said to him,” Sam says. “He was just doin’ the best he could.”

“Well, don’t worry, we’ll find him,” Dean says, with a nod. “And then you’ll apologize. And then within five minutes, you guys will be at each other’s throats.”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, probably.” 

They all stay in silence for a few seconds. Gabriel rubs his thumb against Sam’s hand.

“Let’s hit the road,” Sam suggests.

“Let’s,” Dean agrees.

They get in the car, giving one final wave to Larry and Matt before they drive to their next adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Lemon has returned for one (1) new Supernatural fic before retreating back into darkness. (Y'all can also check out my [tumblr](https://the-one-everyone-forgets.tumblr.com/) for some misc. updates on fics/what I'm up to!). I hope you guys enjoy this fic regardless, because I really did enjoy working on it. Sam and Gabriel have some great moments in this fic that I really enjoyed writing!
> 
> To be honest, I have been Mega Depressed since the 'rona began. I am more or less entirely unmotivated to do anything but scroll through tumblr/Pinterest/twitter/YouTube and sit around, and only _sometimes_ write fanfic (never original fiction-- I can't even get myself to do that). I've been feeling very low lately. That being said, I hope y'all are doing well! Remember to take care of yourself and to treat yourself with care (this is a scary time!). How much water have you drank today? Have you gotten up in the past hour? When was the last time you went to the bathroom/showered?
> 
> How did y'all feel about this fic? Anything you'd like to see? Anything you've been noticing?


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